


One of the Careless Ways

by ifwallscouldspeak



Series: Ficlets for Skamofcolor's Season 1 Sanas [1]
Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-03 02:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17275775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifwallscouldspeak/pseuds/ifwallscouldspeak
Summary: His eyes catch on a burgundy hijab, wrapped like a turban, and a wide, pretty smile. He immediately recognizes the girl, but can't quite place her for the moment. She's standing closely next to another girl in a bright blue hijab, with the longest eyelashes he's ever seen. They both look about his age, so he's pretty sure he goes to school with them, but they're not part of the crowd he usually hangs with. That, or they're distant cousins, there times removed on his mom’s best friend’s side, or some shit like that.“So tell me all about this party last night,” the girl in blue says.(A prequel / standalone piece to "And I Can Feel My Heart Skip (Everytime That I Slip).")





	One of the Careless Ways

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for skamofcolor's Season One “Sana” Appreciation Month, for January 6th: Favorite Skamfr S1 Imane Ship! Maybe it's cheating a little bit but oh well. This takes place in S1, right after Alex's party (when Imane throws her drink on Ingrid and Sara). 
> 
> It can be read as a prequel to ["And I Can Feel My Heart Skip (Everytime That I Slip),"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14283951/chapters/32949147) or can be read as a standalone piece! 
> 
> As always, all grammar, spelling and syntax errors are my own. I do not own SKAMFr. Title comes from "Closer" by Lemaitre.

+++

 

Charles is still knocked out on Alex’s couch by the time Alex stumbles into the living room, tugging a shirt on over his head with one hand. Deep snores rumble out of his best friend’s chest; It’s a little soothing but also a little annoying, with the fucking hangover he’s sporting. He didn’t drink too much last night, but he had been up til fucking six on the phone with Camille, trying to smooth over some bullshit or another. She wasn’t able to make it to the party, but one of her girls saw him talking to Emma.

One text later, and his phone is blowing up.

It was enough to make him want to call it quits, again, because why the fuck can’t he do some harmless flirting without it blowing up in his face? And he hates that Camille is so insecure that she has her friends fucking watching him, or some shit. It’s borderline obsessive and it’s not fucking cool, especially considering the little speech she gave him when they first started hooking up or whatever.

_I’m cool with exploring polyamory, you know, but I don’t know if I like, wanna know. You know?_

He wasn’t sure what the fuck that meant, but he took it as her knowing how he operated. And that if he wanted to hook up with other girls, that was his business and not hers. Well, apparently fucking not, because he had to spend half his party explaining to her that _no, he didn’t kiss a first year_ and _yes, he was sad she wasn’t at the party_ and _no, he wasn’t gonna fuck her over like her past boyfriend_. He had felt a rush of guilt over that, and could practically hear his father’s voice in his head. _Alexandre, you can’t keep this up. The way you’re trying to live your life isn’t conducive to a good one_ -

“Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar...”

Alex jumps, the sound of his family’s athan clock ringing through the apartment. On the couch, Charles groans and turns on his side, stuffing his head between some couch cushions. Alex curses under his breath, mentally beating himself for not remembering to turn off the asr alarm. He hates that his parents bought this kind of clock, where he can’t just shut it off altogether while they’re away. It runs on battery too, and he can’t seem to find any screwdrivers small enough to crack open the battery pack. He knows they did this on purpose, as some kind of way to guilt him into doing his daily prayers.

He storms through the apartment, back towards his parents' room. He practically jams his finger down on the alarm to silence it, glaring at the red digital lights on it that read the time to him. Charles’s voice floats in from the living room, sluggishly calling him an asshole who forgot to turn off the clock. Alex closes his eyes for a moment, enjoying the silence; it's soothing on his pounding head. When he opens them again, his sight lands right on his parents’ wedding photo. His mom smiles brightly back at him in her buba and wrapper, while his father stares stoically in a tuxedo.

By the time he wanders back into the living room, Charles is up, making protein shakes in his kitchen. They pound each others’ fists, before Alex begins to dig in his fridge for some omelette ingredients.

“Camille have you up late last night?” Charles asks, tone smug.

Alex pops his head out from behind the fridge door and glares. “Fuck you.”

Charles winks, shaking it off as easily as it was said. “That was some party last night.”

Alex snorts. “Yah, especially when the fight broke out.”

He almost laughs, thinking about how everything went from zero to a hundred so quickly. One minute, he’s flirting with Emma - and trying to figure out what she acted so awkwardly after she had flirted with him so boldy over Insta, but that’s another thing - and the next he was watching a pair of girls going at each other. “Cat fight” didn’t even begin to fucking cover it.

Charles snorts. “This is why you have to stop inviting these girls to your parties, man.”

“If I remember correctly,” Alex says, “You were making out with one of ‘these girls’ outside.”

Charles tosses a hand at him. “Hey, that fight had nothing to do with me.”

Alex laughs. “Knowing you? Unlikely.”

 

+++

  
Ma  
**_[Sunday, 15:21]_**

Alex, I need you to pick up my dry cleaning.  
Your father and I won’t be back until tomorrow night and they will be closed.

 

Okay Mama

 Make sure you go early because you know they close early today as well.

And when you go make sure you speak to Jeanie not her useless goat of a husband.  
He overcharges for silk even though he knows what the correct price should be.  
If he’s the only one in the shop make sure to wait for Jeanine to come back.  
Chances are she’s running numbers down the block.  
Dégg nga?

Yeah  
I got it  
Talk to Jeanine not her husband

Okay and remember they close at 20:00 today.

Fine

Thank you Alex.  
Begg naa la.

Love you too Mama

 

+++

 

By the time he arrives to his mom’s usual cleaners, the place is packed to the brim. As Charles pulls to a stop right in front of the shop, Alex peers at all the people laughing, gossiping, and milling around through the double windows. The last strains of Kendrick’s latest album play as he unbuckles his seatbelt.

“He’s a psycho,” Charles wraps up tiredly.

Alex makes a non-committal noise.

For most of the ride, Charles had ranted about his brother, something about how he keeps sending vague Facebook messages about possibly coming to visit. Alex mostly looked out the passenger side window, only half-heartedly listening. It’s not because he doesn’t care; Charles was, and would always be, his best friend. But because it seemed like he needed to vent it out more than he needed anyone to be actually listening.

“Anyway. See you tomorrow,” Charles nods.

“Later, bro,” Alex responds. He pops open the door, hesitates for a moment. “And, Charles?”

His friend raises his eyebrows. Alex waits, trying to figure out how not to get too serious and knowing it’s moot, with how fucking serious the topic is anyway.

“He’s far away,” Alex finally says. “He can’t hurt you.”

Charles half-smirks. “If I can’t see him, he’s not real, right?”

It’s something they used to say to each other when they were kids, hiding from pretend boogie men under the bed. It would be funny except it’s absolutely not, not when the monsters are real and they share most of your DNA or whatever the fuck. Alex’s mouth automatically wants to crack a grin back, because it’s what Charles expects. It’s what they do, to reassure each other it’s all really gonna be okay. But more and more lately, doing shit like that feels wrong. Covering up their problems have never stopped them from haunting them anyway.

“Right,” Alex says blandly, sliding down from the car.

He pretends not to notice Charles waiting to drive away until he’s inside the cleaner’s. As if he was waiting for an invitation in, or was waiting for Alex to turn back around and say something else; crack another joke. Alex will do that later, probably; send him a meme or a tweet that will have him literally falling off his couch laughing. But for now. He’ll just let it rock.

The cleaner’s is hot and humid, his shirt already feeling like it’s sticking to his back. He wants to groan, cause he knows he’s gonna have to be in here for at least a half an hour, giving the older women kisses and making the rounds before he can even move towards the counter for his mom’s clothes. Anything else and he’ll be hearing it for weeks from her, all about how someone’s grandmother’s best friend’s cousin’s step-sister complained that _Miriama’s son came in and didn’t even come to say hello, tcch, this is what happens when we raise our kids in France_.

“Alexandre!” an older hijabi calls his name, fanning herself with a paper fan.

She sits in the very corner, a cup of tea in her hands, shoes off and tucked underneath her seat. He pastes an easy smile on his face and goes over to her, already greeting her in Wolof.

 

+++

 

He’s finally managed to make it up to the counter, giving Jeanine his most charming smile. She grins quickly back and him, and then flaps one hand.

“One moment, okay, I need to run to... the store,” she says. “It’ll be ten minutes. Unless I can go grab my husband for you…?”

She says it almost too sweetly, and it makes Alex wonder if she has some kind of vendetta against him. But all he does make sure his smile is pasted on his face when he says,

“Oh no, I'll wait for you.”

There's a general low, groaning sound behind him, but when he turns, he can't figure out the source of the noise. It seems like everyone is sort of generally annoyed; he guesses they all know not to work with Jeanine’s husband. Also, that “ten minutes” to run "to the store" generally means half an hour.

“Fuck,” a familiar voice says to his right. “I don't have time to wait forty five minutes for her to get back, I have a quiz to study for.”

“It's that or pay double,” an answering voice responds. “I can't believe you're doing this for Elimu.”

A groan responds. “I'm his slave for the week. I had no choice.”

“I can't believe the three of you still do that. Jabari tried it with me and I almost smacked him upside the head.”

“The system has its ups and downs.”

Alex turns his head, trying to pick the voices out from the crowd. The cleaners is a small place, but with people coming and going, it's easy to miss someone or two. Plus, it's so damned packed that his own mother could come in and he might not recognize her. That is, until it's time to say goodbye and make the rounds.

His eyes catch on a burgundy hijab, wrapped like a turban, and a wide, pretty smile. He immediately recognizes the girl, but can't quite place her for the moment. She's standing closely next to another girl in a bright blue hijab, with the longest eyelashes he's ever seen. They both look about his age, so he's pretty sure he goes to school with them, but they're not part of the crowd he usually hangs with. That, or they're distant cousins, there times removed on his mom’s best friend’s side, or some shit like that.

“So tell me all about this party last night,” the girl in blue says.

“There's nothing worth telling.”

“Really? Cause I heard through the grapevine that you got into it with some white girl.”

“Binta,” the girl in the turban groans, “if you already know why would you-”

It's then that Alex recognizes them. He's sure the girl in blue - Binta - was in one of his classes last year. And the other one - it's the chick who threw her drink everywhere and got into a fight. Alex is sure that Emma had brought her to the party. He vaguely remembers her smirking at him as she brushed past him and into his apartment. She was beautiful, and if he hadn't already been flirting with Emma he might have tried it with her first. But past experiences definitely made him realize trying to get with two girls in the same friend group was… A horrible idea.

“Because I wanted to see if you would lie, or if you would admit that I was right, and going to a party with those white girls would only get you into trouble,” Binta says.

The other girl groans. “You're the one who told me I needed to expand my circle and make new friends.”

“I meant with other dancers or the basketball team,” Binta says. “Not with a bunch of first years obsessed with throwing a party -”

“Okay, Mom,” the girl laughs easily, but there's a tinge of annoyance underneath it. “Besides, there were basketball players at the party.”

Alex doesn't know what hits him, but he almost wants to smile at her laugh. For some reason, it pulls him back to the school cafeteria, a few weeks ago. He had just walked in with some of his teammates, but was distracted by one of the dorkiest laughs he had ever heard. It had been this girl, sitting at a table with her friend with the pink hair. The other Alex, he remembers. She had seemed so proud to make her friend laugh, neither of them seeming to notice how loud her cackles had been.

But what was her name? How could he fucking remember a laugh but not that?

“Anyway, it was no big thing. Some bitch was talking about Daphné -”

“The one who asked if Muslims were allowed to party.”

“ - and we got into it.”

Binta is quiet for a moment, before making a non-committal “hmm” noise.

“Don't ‘hmm’ at me!”

“What?”

“Binta I know exactly what that noise means. It's the same noise you make when Jabari agrees to cover graveyard shifts after his boss begs him to come in 15 minutes before the shift starts.”

“It is not!”

“Don't lie!”

“Ugh, fine,” Binta throws her hands up. “It is. But only because all of you have the same issue, where you're just…”

“Just?”

“You're too loyal,” Binta says.

“And since when was being loyal a bad thing?”

“It is when you go to bat for people who don't do the same for you.”

“You don't know the girls like I do,” she protests.

“You don't even know the girls!”

“Alex immediately jumped into the fight. And Manon was only a few feet behind her.”

“And Daphné?”

There's a stretch of silence. Alex tries to remember what had happened, immediately after the fight. But all he can picture is Emma chasing after her friends, dirty blonde hair flying behind her. He thinks Charles had made a joke about chicks, which he probably laughed at before going back to his beer.

Binta sighs. “Okay, I'm done lecturing you. Nothing I say will change your mind anyway.” Binta sighs. “I just want you to be careful, habibi.”

For a moment, the girl’s slightly hostile face softens. It's a look of genuine love and care and Alex’s chest tightens. He wonders what it would be like to have her look at him like that. It comes out of nowhere, this deep desire, and it shocks the hell of of him. Because it's not like the look is sexual or even romantic, just… Caring. And he thinks about this conversation, compares it to the one he just had with Charles. It makes him ache, in such a foreign and uncomfortable way that he shifts to leave, before realizing he still needs to wait for his mom’s clothes.

“I know,” she says. “You just have to trust me.”

It's then he remembers what her name is.

Imani.

 _Faith_.

 

+++


End file.
